


there'll be happiness after you

by nineteen95



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Cora Hale Returns, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28185615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nineteen95/pseuds/nineteen95
Summary: There’s just something about the way Lydia’s eyes used follow the girl that makes Cora wonder.“I thought Allison was straight?” She settles on asking, skirting around the real question in her mind.
Relationships: Cora Hale/Lydia Martin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 24





	there'll be happiness after you

**Author's Note:**

> anyway stream _evermore_ for peak titling opportunities

“Hey, you.” Lydia’s voice cuts through the silence when she returns from the bathroom. When Cora turns around, she catches a glimpse of Lydia unclasping her bra and pulling it through her shirt sleeve, rolling her shoulders out with the movement.

Cora smiles at her, and can practically feel how soft the expression on her face is. She loves it when Lydia sounds like that, her voice hitched up a little. Soft, just for Cora.

This thing between them is new, and— unexpected. Even during September’s chaos, Cora couldn’t help her attraction toward Lydia, even after writing her off. It was her bitchy attitude, her wide, wide eyes and the gentle curve of her hips in the girly dresses she wore that did Cora in. 

But then Lydia’s exterior cracked a little. Through the haze of mistletoe poisoning, Cora remembers frantic, worried hands on her when one of the alpha twins (she can’t remember which one) threw her clear across the locker room. She remembers Lydia crumpled on the floor of Derek’s old place, hollowed out with the stench of fae magic and dry earth emanating from her, always present, but magnified now. She had been trembling, struggling to catch her breath and Cora wanted nothing more than to take her away from this place. 

Beacon Hills destroyed everything within its bounds, and Lydia burned too brightly, too vibrantly, to be able thrive here. 

Lydia settles onto her bed, rapidly twisting her hair into a French braid and Cora turns her gaze back to Lydia’s dresser. To the photograph perched next to her jewelry stand.

It’s not the first time she’s been in Lydia’s room. Especially not since Cora called her at the beginning of November, trying to find out why the fuck Derek wasn’t responding to her messages when he got out of the shit Peter put them in and why Stiles was _also_ screening her texts. What she hadn’t been expecting was Lydia’s sudden _rage_ — incensed and desperately begging Cora to come back and because _Derek’s here—and just so you know, he wouldn’t have been able to save you without Stiles. You fucking owe us._

It didn’t matter that Cora was already booking flight tickets the second she heard Lydia’s trembling voice over the speaker. Or that Cora had her duffle packed the minute Derek failed to send her his flight information when he was supposed to be done whatever the fuck he was doing in Beacon Hills.

_(“Why didn’t you tell me?” She demanded when Derek had met her at the gates._

_Derek had the fucking nerve to look at her say nothing. Cora could have killed him._

_She shoved his shoulder. “Why the fuck did I have to find out that Stiles was in danger by fucking cold-calling Lydia, of all people. He saved my life, Derek, he’s basically pack—”_

_“He isn’t.” Derek cut her off, and his voice had been so—soft. Resigned. The fight drains out of her, leaving that crippling ache of helplessness in its wake. “Don’t say that. I just—I know you hate it here. You were_ miserable _last time_ _, Cora. I thought...”_

_Cora raised her eyebrows at him, chin jutted out stubbornly— enough to put any wolf on edge._

_But not Derek, apparently. “I don’t know what I thought.” He said, helpless, and it was just so familiar that Cora couldn't find the energy to fight him about it._

_Typical. She shoved her carry-on in his hands, and then they were walking, side-by-side, shoulder-to-shoulder in the city that refused to let them go. “Fuck, D, who fucking cares. It’s Stiles.”_

_A beat of silence. “I should have told you.”_

_“Yeah, you should have.”)_

But it _is_ the first time she’s really looked at the picture, the only one Lydia has on display.

It’s the candid of her and Allison. Cora bites her lip. She can practically feel Lydia staring holes into her back when she asks her what she’s looking at. It sets her teeth on edge, but she has to _know_.

Unbidden, Cora thinks about how Stiles was prepared to ask Derek about Paige, and quickly acknowledges that how these two scenarios aren’t the same at all— aren’t even within the same _realm_ of comparable, God.

But she can’t help herself. No, nothing has prevented Cora from criticizing Lydia’s love-life before, but this— this is different. _This_ puts them on the same playing field, and Lydia’s more than just a mouthy nuisance now, so much more. There’s just something about the way Lydia’s eyes used to follow the girl that makes her wonder.

“Cora?”

“I thought Allison was straight?” She settles on asking, skirting around the real question in her mind.

Cora didn’t expect Lydia to answer her right away, but the abrupt change in her scent and the sudden pounding of her heart makes Cora whip around to figure out where exactly she went wrong.

Lydia looks gutted.

“Shit.” Cora backtracks, stepping toward her with her hands outstretched. “Shit, Lydia, I’m sorry.”

“I think I loved her.” Lydia says after a moment, looking down at her open palms. “I think I’ll always love her.”

The statement coils into something ugly in Cora’s chest, something like shame and a distant anger— _because_ she’s jealous, which is stupid because—

But Lydia looks _so_ small, from the way her shoulders are curled in on themselves and the clench of her fists in her lap. Cora might have just ruined this tentative thing they’ve been building, but again, _again_ , Cora can’t help herself. Not when it comes to Lydia, apparently.

She crosses the rest of the room slowly, like she’s approaching a wounded animal, and sits down next to her, leaving a bit of space between them. More space than they’ve been giving each other recently, and Cora feels the distance viscerally. She waits for Lydia to continue.

Voice thick, Lydia talks like a dam broke within her. Clumsily, like the words are new to her, she tells Cora how Allison was equal parts hard-headed and devoted. How she was so clever but loved so stupidly. How she believed her after a year of Peter breaking her down from the inside out, believed _in_ her when she was coming into her power.

“One time,” Lydia says, and her scent softens some, “we were driving and she was talking about being in love. Like going on and _on_ about how she couldn’t breathe until she saw Scott. Or something.” She shakes her head, a rueful smile curling her lips. “And I’m sitting there staring at her like she just grew horns or something.”

That… isn’t what Cora was expecting. “That’s dramatic.”

“That was Allison.” Lydia nods a couple times, and— she’s beautiful, with her profile backed by the sunlight streaming through her window, highlighting the coppery strands in her hair and the starbursts around her pupils. “I think she said, ‘don’t you remember what it’s like?’ because Jackson and I had just broken up and it was, well, you know.”

She glances at Cora, who nods her head. Derek told her the whole sordid story, somehow giving her more and less detail that Stiles’ and Lydia’s version. “Anyway, I told her no, and she goes, ‘but you’ve had boyfriends?’”

Cora nods her head in understanding. She’s pretty sure she knows where this is going.

Lydia pauses anyway, like she’s giving Cora time to think about it. Like she didn’t have her own version of that realization when she was in second grade. 

“Boyfriends.” Cora sighs. 

Closing the space between them, Lydia rests her head on the slope of shoulder and the tightness in her chest eases. Cora wraps an arm around her waist, rests her head atop hers. “I’m not saying I couldn’t breathe until I saw Allison after chemistry.” Lydia continues, sounding much more stable than she did a few minutes ago. The smile in her voice feels fond somehow, her scent changing to something bittersweet that Cora associates with nostalgia, but lighter. “But when Allison was by my side, I could be brave.”

She nuzzles a little against Cora’s shoulder, breathing her in as her body relaxes against Cora’s side. Lydia’s on second-day hair, and the fragrance of her shampoo has dissipated enough that Cora can smell the clean scent of her from her roots. It’s easy for Cora to slip her hand into Lydia’s, linking their fingers together.

“I’ve never told anyone that before.” Lydia says after a moment. “I mean, I think Jackson knew because he started _hitting on her_ during sophomore year, but he’s a worse closet case than I was. Am. Whatever.”

Cora ignores that because she doesn’t know where to even _start_ with Jackson. She never wants meets him. 

“Not even Scott?” She regrets the words as soon as they leave her mouth, because alpha or not, some losses aren’t meant to be commiserated. Cora knows that.

As expected, the look she receives could melt glass. Lydia flops backwards, tugging at Cora’s wrist so she follows her down, easy as anything, and then they’re just lying there, heads angled toward each other. Sharing space. “No, not _Scott_. Jesus. Honestly, Stiles would probably be a better confidant, what with his new unrequited love thing going on—or, no, it isn’t, is it?” Lydia looks at her and Cora just rolls her eyes up to the ceiling, shaking her head. _That_ is not her problem. “But no. I’m not going to talk to Stiles about being in love with—no.”

Yeah. She gets it.

Still, this is important. Monumental. She has to show Lydia she _gets_ that. “But you’re telling me.” Cora nudges her slightly with her hand.

Lydia takes that as an invitation to maneuver the both of them to their sides, so that she can spoon up behind her with her arms snug tight around Cora’s waist. Lydia inhales her scent, and Cora’s breath hitches slightly, the gesture so viscerally _lupine_. Lydia has to know what she’s doing to her. She _has_ to.

“I’m telling you.” She says softly and Cora smiles.

Later, when the tension in her room eases and Lydia smells less like aching grief and bittersweet sentiment, Cora tells her that she’s a cliché. 

“Excuse me?” Lydia gasps, all attitude and prissiness.

“You know.” Cora lets herself laugh a little, reaching for the blanket to tug over their bodies. The setting sun peering through the bay window washes Lydia’s room in a warm amber. It’s making her making her sleepy. “Teenage lesbian pining for her straight best friend? Groundbreaking.”

“Oh- _ho_.” Lydia’s unamused, but she adjusts the rest of the blanket over them anyway. “And _you’re_ an expert in cliches, now?”

Cora snorts, snags her phone from under Lydia’s pillow (the one that’s starting to smell more like Cora than Lydia) to shoot a text to Stiles, asking him to tell Derek not worry or watch the next episode of _Jersey Shore_ without her. Derek never says anything about her using Stiles as a messenger, probably because he knows he’s never going to actually use his phone for its intended purpose, but he always seems more relaxed when she gets back to the apartment after finding a way to let him know when to expect her. It’s weird though, and she felt obligated and trapped at first, by everything that Derek wasn’t telling her.

Still, she’s been trying to be better— tries not to view it as Derek keeping tabs on her because she isn’t used to having a real guardian, hasn’t been for years. Instead, she reminds herself that even now, her brother _still_ isn’t her guardian and focuses on how relieved she feels when Derek reciprocates, letting _her_ know when he’s spending the night at Stiles’. How it eases the knot of worry she hadn’t noticed growing in her chest that probably lives in Derek’s too.

“Mhmm. The dickhead jock and the bitchy cheerleader? Predictable.” Cora grins, lacing her fingers through Lydia’s. Abruptly, Cora notices that Lydia’s nails are trimmed shorter than they ever were before, and when she concentrates, the lingering scent of acetone burns bright in the back of her nose. Cora rubs her thumb over the tips of them. They’re filed short. Cora bites her lip, hard. Her stomach swoops.

The thought flies out of her mind when Lydia unwinds her arm to fling Cora’s hair out of the way from her face, spitting out a few strands unattractively. Cons of being the big spoon. Cora briefly wonders if Jackson or Aiden or whoever the fuck ever saw that side of her. She thinks about how exhausting it must have been to keep up the façade, especially in the softer moments.

Seriously, what even was the point of that? Lydia’s a goddamn force of nature, she shouldn’t make herself small for anyone. She’ll ask her about it. Not today, though. Someday.

Cora pulls the rest of her hair over her shoulder and down toward her chest. She knows from experience that Lydia won’t stop wriggling if the strands are tickling her face. She settles back into the cradle of Lydia’s arms, closing her eyes against light, centering herself with the familiar sound of Lydia’s heartbeat and the sound of her slowing breaths. Behind her, Lydia hums, a happy sound that Cora wants to tuck away in her heart.

They have time.

**Author's Note:**

> y/y the quintessential queer experience is pining for ur straight best friend


End file.
